"I haven't got it," said Hannah, and with a sudden swing of her arm she sent the key flying through the open window with unerring aim.
"Curse you!" cried the man.
"In the time you take to find it you may learn better manners," said
Hannah defiantly.
Brave, staunch old soul, full worthy of that far-off Devon county which gave her birth. The man followed his curse with a blow—a heavy blow, striking with the hand which held his sword, and the woman fell with a thud to the ground, to lie there until Stefan and the Countess, stealing from the house presently, covered the dead serving woman with the leopard skin.
To find the key was hopeless, and the door was a stout one. It resisted the soldiers' efforts for a long while. When at last it yielded they rushed along the passage to the small house by the river, but, save for rubbish, it was empty. No boat lay upon the water. There was no sign of the fugitives. "They must have come this way," said one man. "Had not that old beldame resisted us we should have caught them."
"Back to the house, comrades," shouted another; "there should still be something there worth laying hands on."
Until now Ellerey had waited, hidden by the river house. He had reached it almost directly after the Princess and Dumitru had left it; but ignorant of this fact, he had waited for them. From the soldiers' words he learnt the truth. Soldiers were in the garden now, and as only a little while since he had sought to enter it unseen, he now sought to leave it, crouching from tree to tree and from shrubbery to shrubbery. His life was too valuable to be uselessly thrown away. He succeeded presently in scaling a wall and dropping into a side lane, to fall in later with a band of conspirators, some of whom were present when the tale of the Countess's treachery was told last night, and who were now quietly making their way to an arranged meeting place.
"But the Princess, comrades?" said Ellerey. "My place is beside her."
"Fear nothing, Captain. She will come and help us to make this day a glorious one in Sturatzberg." The morning was advancing, but people who respected the law kept within their houses, and left their doors fast barred. From early dawn the soldiers were in the streets, and it was evident that to-day the ordinary business of life must be suspended. As the hours passed there were sounds of fighting on every side, the fierce rattle of musketry at street corners, flying men charged by the soldiers, turning sometimes into every alley and place of refuge which offered, turning sometimes at the shout of one determined leader to withstand the charge, to be cut to pieces or to bear the soldiers back, leaving many a King's man and King's enemy lying dead or writhing with their wounds, their enmity forgotten in their common suffering.
In one side street, soon after such a skirmish had swept it from end to end, a dark figure glided from door to door. He had not fought; he seemed unwilling to do so, for at the sound of approaching conflict he was in readiness to retreat and hide himself. More than one wounded man in the roadway pleaded for help, or cried for water, but he was deaf to their entreaties. He was making all speed to some point, and would allow nothing to hold him back. Now he ran forward a few paces, now stopped and turned hastily into an alley and went quickly on again. He came at last to the house of Frina Mavrodin, when it was close on noon. The door at the chief entrance had been torn from its hinges, there was nothing to bar his entrance. The servants who had escaped death had fled, or lay hidden in secret places in the house. The soldiers had deserted it, finding their quarry gone, to go and help their comrades in the streets. At the moment the street was empty, and the man slipped across the threshold, stepping over the dead which lay in the hall, grim witnesses of the fierceness of the fight there. The man passed from room to room rapidly, his ears intent to catch every sound. It was clear that robbery was not his object, for there was none to stay him taking whatever he would. He passed on, touching nothing, and, by the way he glanced down this corridor and that, it was evident that the house was not familiar to him. Chance directed his footsteps and brought him to the room where Princess Maritza had been. The broken door at the further end attracted his notice and he entered the room, stopping for a moment to look into the face of Hannah. The leopard skin had not been thrown over her yet. She was the first woman lying dead he had come across, and he grew excited. She had been killed because she stood in the way, and she would not have stood in the way unless she had had someone in imminent danger to defend. She must have been with the Princess, he argued, and if so, this must be the way they had taken. He went quickly along the passage and up to the house by the river. Someone had certainly been there, but which direction had they taken afterward? He glanced to right and left, and stood for some time looking across the river.